I kicked my 23 year old son out last night.

Mel - posted on 02/10/2016
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My 23 year old son has never treated me well. He busted my mouth at least once a week from the time he was 16 until the time he was 19. In order for him to complete high school, I drove from Houston, through four different cities, for him to attend a school in which it was much easier for him to "get by." On the way back, every morning, I caught rush hour traffic in each of these 4 cities. The round-trip, every morning, was 3 1/2 hours. That afternoon? I did it all over again. I did that for 5 months. After that? I paid for summer school.

My son is a liar by nature. His biological father is the same way. It's a strong argument for heredity. The drug addiction? That's just extra fun.

Recently, he was arrested for possession of a controlled substance, meth. I bonded him out and hired his attorney. While he assured me he was going to pay me back for his attorney, I have never seen a nickel; I never will. His arrest and subsequent probation hasn't slowed him down a bit. He disappeared for as much as a week, sometimes, often coming back high out of his mind. It often takes a day or three for him to "come down."

His attorney told him to get a job, immediately. This was to give him a bit more to work with in court. You see, the attorney managed to get his charge knocked down to a lesser degree. My son got a job at a restaurant very close to my home. He has developed a work ethic, at least. He's realized he can do a lot more speed, when he has money.

He's often gone during holidays, because he knows it hurts me. In December, he came in at 5 am. He'd been gone for several days. He was so very high, he couldn't put an intelligible sentence together. He didn't seem to realize he was speaking gibberish. He did, however, seem to understand me when I told him so. I suggested he try a single word. That, too, was beyond him. Several hours later, He barged into my room. He wanted the keys to my truck. He said it was to go to work. I refused. "Why?! Why won't you give me the keys to the f*&^ing truck?!" I told him I wouldn't give him the keys because a mere three hours before he was unable to speak. He snatched the keys off my desk, without me realizing it. He stole my truck and wrecked it in a drug area that is more than 20 miles from his job. He bent the frame, so even after a $2,700.00 repair, the truck will never be the same. It's just as well. The first 10 days I allowed him to drive it, he burned the seats up, allowing cigarettes to burn their full length on the seats - more than one. The passenger's door won't even open and close anymore. You see, the $2,700 didn't include body work.

He knew he wasn't to smoke inside the house. He didn't in front of me, letting me know he is grown and he can smoke wherever he likes. It's his room, he said, and he is grown. The filth in that room is unbelievable. it seems he didn't bother with an ashtray and just used the wood floor. I don't know is the liquid was poured to put out a fire, or if he'd just spilled it. The floor in that room has about an eighth of an inch of solid sludge; it's ashes, tobacco, and some type of syrup.

I've told him year after year that I will not continue to take his abuse. I mean it. Last night, he punched the door to his bedroom over and again until he broke the upper right quarter of the door off. He had a girl in there and he was chest bumping me, threatening me, claiming I beat him as a child. (I have hit him one time - in his life. He was 15, and he called me a whore. I reacted before I could stop myself.) "I'll beat you down, now, B*&^%!!!" he kept screaming, nose to nose, in my face. He had me pressed up against the wall at the top of the stairs. He said he was going to knock me down the stairs.

He walks into my home and won't even stop walking as he enters. It doesn't matter that I may be speaking to him. I asked to speak with him last night. When he closed the door in my face, I continued to speak through the door. That was his justification for damaging the property and for pinning me against the wall and threatening me. I dialed 911. I hung up, but they called me back. I told them there was no need, but they dropped by anyway. My son heard the conversation with the police, so he was gone before they arrived. (He's on probation.)

My son isn't, and has never been, adhering to the stipulations of his probation. I've warned him they won't say anything to him, they will allow him to continue to pay the fees, and they will then revoke him. This is the perfect opportunity for him. He will say he went to prison because I put him out.

None of us were trying to be mean about our answers or anything else for that matter. But if you suffered abuse at the hands of his father before him, that can explain a lot of things going on. Abuse from another is hard on yourself let along taking it from your child. When we say "enable" we mean that you have backed down on doing anything to put a stop to the behavior that is being displayed or that you do not do anything about it at all because of various reasons: Here case and point you said that you have suffered under his dad's attentions to abuse. It was something you were used to. NO it is not fair to say this about anyone but he made his choices to be this way so he has to pay. You should not have to suffer for his actions. That is not fair to you either. We, the other moms and I; do not want to see our own kids get into this kind of trouble with the law but we raised them the best we could with what was available to us. Are all of our kids successful? That depends on the kid and how they use what they have been taught and the tools they have been given to live their lives. Same goes for yours. I am sure you did the best you could under the circumstances but that does not make you a bad parent or a failure. Just pick yourself up, take care of all your health issues, and get that counseling to work out your issues and your self esteem. I hope you get better very soon, and I am sure the rest here wish the same thing.

"I've told him year after year that I will not continue to take his abuse. I mean it."but you didn't mean it and you continued to take it and make excuses for why you could not followed thru with consequences. No police dept is so corrupt that you'd be ignored for over three years of complaints. Unless he on on the lease he does not have the right to live there if you'd want him to, kick him out, put his stuff on the curb and change the locks. You need to fix your codependency issues before you can even consider a relationship with your child.

{{Raye is right. I did not say you caused this but enabled his behavior and allowed him to be this way instead of trying to do something about it and getting it under control then. It got bad over time. From your descriptions, it just escalated to the point he is now in trouble with the law and not on any part of anything you did. HE made those choices not you. But by not making him responsible for destroying the truck and for other things, HE thinks that it is okay doing what he wishes no matter if it is lying or doing drugs.}}

"I did call the police, when he hit me. The police were zero help. In fact, the first time I called them, I told my son there was a law against delinquency. He didn't believe me. The Houston police showed up and I Heard Them telling him he didn't have to listen to me, that he couldn't be picked-up for refusing to listen to me; he was 16. That was the beginning of the end. By the time I spoke with the police, they were inflamed against me and were of no help at all."----This is where you should have called and talked to a supervisor over this. As a minor you were responsible for his actions at the time. If he had done this to someone else and they had called the cops, he would have been arrested and taken to juvenile Hall.

"We were living in an apartment complex filled with many people, doing the same thing my son was doing; they were doing it with him! By the time the police arrived, there was a group of his 'getting high buddies' waiting for the police. Their first time out, this group told the police officers that i was racist. They went on to make up an entire litany of false 'stories' of my exploits as a racist. The police believed them. Their reasoning was that so many people wouldn't be telling them the same thing, if it weren't true. It also didn't help that the police officers were black and seemed to want to believe their nonsense. The truth of the matter is that every single one of this group congregated outside and got high together, all day and night."---Being racist should not have had anything to do with it. And I do not understand why the cops would side with his drug buddies or smoke buddies over things. It does not sound like a good group of police officers. You could have called their supervisors to complain.

"I think I mentioned he is an artful liar. When he was angry I'd had to the nerve to say anything to him about his behavior, he would take some small, innocuous truth and create and entire story behind it. this will be made-up, but to help you better understand... Let's say he knew he'd hit me again and I had called the police, or I was talking to them on the phone, outside. He would grab something of mine out of the bathroom, launch it at the wall in his bedroom, and when the cops showed-up, his story would be, -He was in his room, doing homework, and I opened his door and launched my perfume bottle at him, hitting the wall beside his head. - The cops would look for the perfume bottle, and finding it, believe everything he said. You just can't imagine how very crazy, crazy can get."--It sounds crazy enough that nothing was done because the cops that come do nothing about it.

"I didn't want him to go to prison. I'm afraid it would permanently scar him. The reason I didn't call the police about the truck is because it would have revoked his deferred adjudication status and he would have gone to prison. He doesn't think things through. Then? He casts blame, withdraws, and becomes suicidal. He often re-writes whatever actually happened, casting himself as the victim."---I understand you do not want your son to go to prison. None of us moms want our kids in that situation. But he ruined your truck and you let it go and he got away with it. You enabled his doing so instead of calling it in and letting him face the consequences regardless of his adjudication status or not. He does not think things through because he has not had to do that because the cops have let him get away with things as a minor and you have let things slide or enabled him to do so. He needs to grow up. He is an adult man not a child.And as far as scarring him for life, he did that doing drugs, blaming others for his actions and not taking responsiblity for them, and making you to look the bad guy.

"He has had a full-time job, a management position, for a year, next month. He has known he was to save for a vehicle and / or a place of his own, all this time. He is regularly scheduled in excess of 55 hours a week. He has chosen to party it all away. Each and every time I asked him, How much have you saved? He would lie to me, finally, refusing to answer me. You see, its his money and its none of my business."--Well as far as the money goes, it is his and you can not make him do anything with it. But as Raye has said you could have had a contract of the rules of living there, that he pay room and board, and what other things should have been deemed necessary. He has to learn he is responsible for himself.

"As I have stated, "I put him out, last night." I need counseling? More than you know. I agree with that statement. However, the way you state it, you seem to imply I caused the problem. Even after having done that, I feel sick at my stomach, right now."---I never said you caused it and this is a quote I put in my last post: { I just do not get why you allowed him to do this to you. You enabled it and now you have put him out. He is 23 years old and more than old enough to pay for his actions and take responsible action for those choices he took. You did not force him to take drugs or get involved in them. You did not make him do the things he has done. He made those choices. You need to get some counseling.} I said you enabled him and his actions. I said he was a man now and more than old enough to pay for his actions. I said you did not force his hand in the things he had done and what I did not get was why you let it go on and on. I never used the word caused in any of it. I was trying to understand what caused you to let it to continue. By it continuing, you have had several years of nothing but pain, anguish and a son who does not respect you.

"Do you have brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins... someone? Well, I don't. I know what its like to be entirely alone. I didn't want him to feel abandoned or alone, because I know how that feels, too. Part of me not putting him out was me hoping beyond hope. Part of it was probably this empty feeling in my stomach, that now seems to be situated in my throat."--I have family about but they can not always be there to help me. I know what it feels like to be alone. It is how you deal with it that makes or breaks the situation. As for him feeling abandoned--I do not see where in his actions that you describe that he feels alone if he has all those buddies to hang with. He is not too worried about that it seems. I do not think he will understand what alone means until he is in jail and has no one to help him or agree with him all the time. Sometimes it takes that to learn a lesson or even more.

"I am entirely alone again, but probably better-off. I would much rather it had happened before I traded my youth for debt and pain." I am sorry this has happened to you. But you do need some counseling of some sort. It will help you and you should try to find some friends that you can be with and maybe a support group for what you have been through.

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Sarah - posted on 02/12/2016

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Shoulda, woulda, coulda, Right? Who doesn't look back and wish they had done some things differently? Some may be more extreme than others; but regret is regret. Mel- You need to get some help and if you wait over the weekend, what is your plan if your son returns? I hope you start making some calls, insurance or not. There are many free hot-lines women's service shelters available in the US; insurance is not your worry right now. Get some help, please for you, for once, put yourself first.

I hate to say this because I understand the love a parent has for a child, but this is a monster you created. You did WAY too much for him even back in high school. You should have let him fail. You should have made him suffer the consequences for his behavior, regardless of how it hurt you. I'm not perfect as a mother either, but I tell my teen son all the time that if he wants certain things, he has to earn them. If he wants to go out with friends, he better make sure he's taken care of his responsibilities at school and home first. He has NO privileges unless those things are done. He may tell us we are mean sometimes and tell us his other friends parents don't get treated like this but you know what? His other friends talk to their parents and do crap that I would never put up with

Pre-existing condition, etc. is why I can not. You are correct, it's Thursday, 1:23 p.m., here. I could technically go down in the morning, but Fridays are a day off for many people down there.

Thanks for the encouragement, but I can not be diagnosed with anything by a medical doctor until I attend to some legal work. Then, I can get insurance. It doesn't matter that I strongly suspect something, because I am not a doctor. Once diagnosed, it becomes a pre-existing condition, thus not covered by insurance acquired subsequent to the diagnosis.

I'll do it Monday. It's something I've put-off for far too long. Actually getting that stuff done will probably go a long way toward making me feel better, too! :-).

I don't presently have medical insurance. After taking care of some legal issues, I will be able to get the insurance, but it will be several months from now.

I purchased a blood pressure cuff, and I am monitoring the pressure. That and the depression are the two largest issues I have right now. I can't 'fix' anything else, until I address those two.

Dove, I'm going to do that, I promise. Monday, I'll make myself drive into Houston and begin the arduous process of attending to it all. I just can't do it today. It's too late in the day, anyway. It's and hour and a half drive to the court complex and law library.

I actually feel a bit better. My stomach is still a bit squirrely, But I'll be okay.

Each time, up until and including his most recent arrest, I'd held out hope that 'this time, he'll change.' The hitting me? It may not make sense, but I'd grown so accustomed to his father beating on me, before I left him (when my son was born) that I guess my son hitting me didn't shock me as much as it should have.

I've long been convinced he is the way he is because of my many failures as a parent. I know I am horrible at it. That realization has always been in the back of my mind, each time he 'goes off.' I've done us both a disservice by waiting until now to finally be done with it all.

Two years ago, we moved from that apartment in Houston to a house a suburb of Houston. The past five years, I've become more and more depressed, to the point It's difficult to make myself leave my home. He has no respect for me; that's obvious. I have little respect for myself, these days, so I guess I couldn't expect or hope for better from him.

The only sentence that you'd written that made me feel you were blaming me was, "You enabled it and now you have put him out." That sounded unfair to him, and after a bit more thought, I have to admit that in actuality, it probably is. There's nothing I can do about that.

I do appreciate the time and thought you obviously spent in your very thoughtful response. Maybe focusing on him and fixating on his drama was my way of avoiding my own issues. I have to garner up enough force of will to make changes in my own life, right now. My health is poor, and if I don't address some pretty pressing issues - soon - my problems will resolve themselves. I guess it's time I accept responsibility for some of my own actions and inaction. Right now, the depression makes it hard to move.

You enable this behaviour. Proof is that he's 23, still living at home still abusing you (which should have been STOPPED the very first time, and every time since should have had a police report filed)

If someone hits you (even your teenage child)... you press charges for assault. If the police came to my house after my child assaulted me and did NOT arrest my child... I would keep calling their office 24/7 until they sent someone to remove the assaulter.

Can't turn back time though. I didn't read much further since it's way too early in the morning for me to read a book, but if you finally have him out of your home... Good for you! At 23 he is far old enough to man up and take 100% accountability for his actions. Hopefully he will learn before it is too late and he destroys his entire future.

Oh... never mind. I did read the last bit... you didn't kick him out... he left and it sounds like he is likely to come back. Change the locks, keep your door locked and the instant he shows up call the police and have him removed. Let him know he is no longer welcome at your home.

He may be your son and you will always love him, but he is a dangerous criminal and you do not have to tolerate his abuse a single day longer. Please seek some counseling for yourself immediately. An abusive relationship is an abusive relationship whether it's w/ a child or a spouse and you need to heal.

I don't think Evelyn was saying you CAUSED the problem. But that you have allowed it to continue for such a long time. If the officers that came to the house didn't help you, did you talk to their supervisor? Did you look for a way to have him drug screened and have consequences for his continued use? Did you talk to a doctor to find ways to try to keep him off drugs? There seems to be more that you could have done early on to try to keep him on the right track.

When he turned 18, you should have had him sign a contract to continue living in your home, or sent him out right then. The contract should have included responsibilities that he would have if he were living in any other apartment: Keep areas clean so as not to draw bugs or rodents into the building. No destruction of property or he has to pay for it to be fixed (this includes the "syrup" on the floor of his room). Buying his own food or replacing food he takes of yours. Etc. And if he repeatedly did not comply, you could give him notice to move or have him evicted.

You saying over and over that you won't stand for it, and then letting him keep on disrespecting you, has taught him that in fact he CAN do whatever he wants. You have to give the "tough love" and actually show him you will not longer take his abuse. Report him for the illegal activities. He is an adult, and this actions have consequences. If he goes to jail, then that's his fault. You've given him too many chances and he's not going to change until he hits rock bottom (if then). And it's not your job anymore to deal with him. Then, yes, you should get counseling. If you prefer constant abuse to being alone and safe, then that's YOUR problem that you need to get help for.

I did call the police, when he hit me. The police were zero help. In fact, the first time I called them, I told my son there was a law against delinquency. He didn't believe me. The Houston police showed up and I Heard Them telling him he didn't have to listen to me, that he couldn't be picked-up for refusing to listen to me; he was 16. That was the beginning of the end. By the time I spoke with the police, they were inflamed against me and were of no help at all.

We were living in an apartment complex filled with many people, doing the same thing my son was doing; they were doing it with him! By the time the police arrived, there was a group of his 'getting high buddies' waiting for the police. Their first time out, this group told the police officers that i was racist. They went on to make up an entire litany of false 'stories' of my exploits as a racist. The police believed them. Their reasoning was that so many people wouldn't be telling them the same thing, if it weren't true. It also didn't help that the police officers were black and seemed to want to believe their nonsense. The truth of the matter is that every single one of this group congregated outside and got high together, all day and night.

I installed Lorex video cameras and began taping the entire courtyard outside my door. A family of three young women my son was getting high with assaulted me. Yes, I said that correctly, the whole family, except the 10 year old boy, assaulted me. I called the police again, armed with the video on a DVD. They were not interested in even viewing it. They had notations written about me in 'my jacket' (as they phrased it) and they did not care that I was assaulted on the video. My son and his smoke buddies were causing all of this drama. I wasn't the only person they assaulted. The next door neighbor asked me to burn a disk of her being assaulted. They threw a full 16 ounce Coke bottle at her head from the second floor. It busted her head wide open. The apartment complex threw the family that assaulted my neighbor and me out of the complex, but it took a while. They denied it all and their rent was paid through section 8; it took longer than it should have. CPS discovered her 10 year old son had never been to school a day in his life and that they'd stolen all of the patio furniture, using it in their apartment. . I also have video of my son entering my apartment and stealing every single towel I owned and giving them to these women. I had just bought over $100 in towels. He gave them every single one. They washed them out in their tub and hung them to dry on the upstairs awning and jeered at me anytime I left my apartment. if I hadn't lived through that, I'd have never believed it could happen in that way. That was 7 years ago.

My son is also a cutter. The one thing I should have done is filed a mental health warrant on him, after one particularly nasty bout. He'd been gone for several days, and when I came back, he 'crashed.' He cut himself severely enough that the police followed the blood trail down the street in their efforts to find him. He was 19, when that happened, and it's the first time the police have ever tried to help me with him. A new law was passed, and they now send what's called 'a crisis intervention team' out when I call about my son. This team is better trained to deal with people who have the issues my son has.

I think I mentioned he is an artful liar. When he was angry I'd had to the nerve to say anything to him about his behavior, he would take some small, innocuous truth and create and entire story behind it. this will be made-up, but to help you better understand... Let's say he knew he'd hit me again and I had called the police, or I was talking to them on the phone, outside. He would grab something of mine out of the bathroom, launch it at the wall in his bedroom, and when the cops showed-up, his story would be, -He was in his room, doing homework, and I opened his door and launched my perfume bottle at him, hitting the wall beside his head. - The cops would look for the perfume bottle, and finding it, believe everything he said. You just can't imagine how very crazy, crazy can get.

I didn't want him to go to prison. I'm afraid it would permanently scar him. The reason I didn't call the police about the truck is because it would have revoked his deferred adjudication status and he would have gone to prison. He doesn't think things through. Then? He casts blame, withdraws, and becomes suicidal. He often re-writes whatever actually happened, casting himself as the victim.

He has had a full-time job, a management position, for a year, next month. He has known he was to save for a vehicle and / or a place of his own, all this time. He is regularly scheduled in excess of 55 hours a week. He has chosen to party it all away. Each and every time I asked him, How much have you saved? He would lie to me, finally, refusing to answer me. You see, its his money and its none of my business.

My son 'punishes' people who have put him out. He decided he was going to live with his father's parents, until they put him out after 3 months. He quit speaking to them; that was 7 years ago. He went to live with his father; that lasted a month, ending because his father won't work, and my son had run out of money - I wasn't giving him anymore. My son was 18, then. He hasn't spoken with his father since then.

As I have stated, "I put him out, last night." I need counseling? More than you know. I agree with that statement. However, the way you state it, you seem to imply I caused the problem. Even after having done that, I feel sick at my stomach, right now.

Do you have brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins... someone? Well, I don't. I know what its like to be entirely alone. I didn't want him to feel abandoned or alone, because I know how that feels, too. Part of me not putting him out was me hoping beyond hope. Part of it was probably this empty feeling in my stomach, that now seems to be situated in my throat.

I am entirely alone again, but probably better-off. I would much rather it had happened before I traded my youth for debt and pain.

First off, why did you allow him to hurt you between the ages of 16 and 19 like he did? I would have called the cops the first time just to make the point I would not have put up with his ways. Secondly, you paid for his attorney after he was arrested and charged with drug issues. I would not have bailed him out and paid for an attorney. I would have let him sit in jail and have had to have a public defender. Thirdly, you could have had him picked up for a stolen vehicle. Fourth, you could have had him arrested for damages to property and threatening you. The list could go on. I just do not get why you allowed him to do this to you. You enabled it and now you have put him out. He is 23 years old and more than old enough to pay for his actions and take responsible action for those choices he took. You did not force him to take drugs or get involved in them. You did not make him do the things he has done. He made those choices. You need to get some counseling.